


not your place nor your time

by underwaternature



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pain, Prison Arc, Regret, spoilers for tommy's march 1st stream, that cat in the cell i mean, well as much as it gets when it's a mc roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29798013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underwaternature/pseuds/underwaternature
Summary: His next words held no judgement, but no reassurance either. Wilbur is as calm as ever when he states plainly, “You’re dead, Tommy.”Beat.Tommy’s voice becomes shaky. “...What?”Tommy thought he'd have more time.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	not your place nor your time

He almost doesn’t remember how all of this began.

“I think you’re lying— _I think you’re just being a liar!_ ”

Tommy watches Dream’s face curl more and more into a nasty snarl, and he feels himself clench a fist at his side to steel himself. He hears his own voice bounce around in this obsidian box, reminding him of how he was trapped inside here with this absolute _madman_ with no way to call for help or to escape.

_How long has he been in here?_

“Tommy, your life is literally _in my hands_ ,” Dream continues to argue, and Tommy wants nothing more than to punt him against the wall right then and there. “You _think_ —you _think!_ —that you’re the one in power here but the truth is: you’re not. You’ve never been in power from the start; you think _just because_ I’m in here makes me powerless?”  
  
“I think you’re just a self-obsessed prick who’s up his own arse!” Tommy shouts back, refusing to let the man get the upper hand here. “I think you’re a _pathetic_ little man, Dream, one who is stuck in here forever and will _stay here_ until the day you die. My life is _not_ in your hands, and I’m going to get out of here on my little scooter and—!”  
  
“And what, huh?! And then what, Tommy? If you’re so confident on getting out of here alive, then be my guest! Walk through that lava, right now! Do it!” Dream points at the cascade of lava right at the cell’s entrance, the warm orange glow betraying how much of a threat it posed; and for a moment, Tommy almost did it—he wanted to prove him _wrong_ , to show that he didn’t hold that kind of power over him anymore—

But that would be too easy of a thing to give to Dream.

So instead, Tommy wrenches his head away from the sight and shouts again, “I’m not fuckin’ listening to anything you say to me! I know for a _fact_ that all you’ve ever done is want me _dead_ , and all because you wanted power over this goddamn server! And look where that fuckin’ got you! All you ever did was want to see me dead and _lie_. You lied to me, you lied to Tubbo, you lied to—to _everyone!_

“And you know what? I think you’re lying about that revival book you said Schlatt gave you. Fuckin’ _Schlatt!_ Why would Schlatt, of _all_ people, have a revival book in his possession? Who in the world would he need to revive, huh? And if _you_ have it, why didn’t you just go and revive _him?_ I’ve _seen_ his corpse, I’ve seen his bloody heart—I’ve seen him fuckin’ _die in the drug van!_ Why don’t you revive him right now, you righteous asshole?!”  
  
“Oh, I _will_ ,” Dream says suddenly, and Tommy, for a moment, is thrown back into exile, back to the reassuring voice, the voice telling him to dig the hole and light up the TNT and watch all of his gear and tools and items and hard work be blown up to smithereens—

“But first, why don’t you say hi to Schlatt?”

—And then all once something connects with Tommy’s jaw and he stumbles back against the obsidian wall, sees Dream approach with bruised and bloodied knuckles; he reaches up to his lips and feels something wet, and then pulls it back to see red and oh it’s the same red that was on Dream’s hand too—

Dream throws another punch his way, but now Tommy’s finally registers what’s happening and has half the mind to duck to the left and away from the fist. Right next to his ear he hears something crack sickeningly, followed by Dream cursing under his breath and retracting his hand as he shakes it off. Tommy practically scrambles away, rises to his feet with an unstable balance and his back to the lava, and at this point he’s pointedly aware that he could easily just be pushed into the deadly wall of fire and molten rock and die right then and there.

He touches his bottom lip with his two front teeth and flinches; he tastes the distinct metallic that comes along with blood, the sting in which his teeth make contact with the split middle. His vision is still dizzy, whether from the wall or the punch he doesn’t know, but he could see Dream approach him again, his anger apparent and oh shit—

On pure adrenaline alone, Tommy ducks underneath another punch and hears Dream swear again. Taking the chance he chooses to tackle the man right at his chest, wrapping his arms in a death grip and hopes with all his might that the wall is close enough to slam him into—

And that hope drains as Dream wrenches his way out of Tommy’s grip and clasps his hands together to bash them both together at the back of the teen’s neck. Tommy hold falters and then he drops, a shivering pain shooting up and down his spine and oh _fuck_ he can’t turn his head around to look at—

He gets kicked at the ribs and is forced to turn over on his back; Dream’s face is curled into that snarl and scowl but there’s this glint in his eyes that reminds Tommy too much of when he congratulated him on burning and exploding his own items, of when he tried to get him to join him again at L’Manberg’s portal. It’s a glint that gives him another burst of energy to just _fight back_ , even as Dream boot stomps roughly on his stomach and makes Tommy cough up blood and bile from his throat.

As Dream leans forward to look him in the eye, Tommy grabs the front of his shirt and _yanks_ him down with him, watching in slivers of satisfaction of how his head slams against the obsidian floor and how he can’t pick himself up right away. Tommy gets up before him, and before Dream could do anything to stop him he’s already on top of the man, straddling his torso as he grabs a fistful of the front of his shirt again and delivers a punch of his own straight at the underside of Dream’s jaw.

There’s another crack that gives Tommy another moment of satisfaction, but he knows better than the expect Dream to take it lying down so suddenly now they’re wrestling for control, in a tangle of arms and legs that grab and kick at anything—hair, shirt, torso, face, and at one point Dream leaves a harsh scratch on his cheek to the point where Tommy could feel something warm seep out of there too.

One of Dream’s hands finds its way to the collar of Tommy’s shirt; he grasps at it, and in one swift motion he bashes the both of their heads together hard enough that it leaves Tommy reeling.

Everything starts to blur together—the cell, the noises, the colors—and Tommy only barely hears and sees and feels Dream get back up to his feet and drag over back to the corner of the room. A stupid part of his mind wanders back to the cat carcass in the other corner, laid right beside the wall of lava and thinks that, surely, its skin and fur should catch on fire any second now—

Something hard hits his skull again, and his neck pops and he hears something inside of his head break. He reaches up weakly to make him stop, and he almost lets out a whimper, a beg to get him to stop; but Dream doesn’t stop, not for a second, and reels back his right first to another blow at the temple, and the man watches as the boy’s body slams against the wall again, much bloodier and bruised than the first one minutes before, and breathes heavily as blood that’s his own and that’s not at the same time stain his face. He wipes blood off the side of his mouth with his sleeve, and sees the fabric colored crimson when he pulls away.

Tommy’s already dead before he slumps lifelessly on the floor.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


He feels like he’s been drowning.

Tommy wakes up with a gasping breath, his mind clouded in a panic as his chest falls and rises at a pace that’s too fast and too desperate to be considered normal. White—white, white, clouds, fog and mist—none of this was anything he recognized.

_Where…?_

He notices that he woke up lying down and pushes himself to sit. Perhaps too quickly, though, as he’s suddenly hit with a sense of vertigo that makes his head hurt. Something sits heavy on his left eyelid but not the right, and Tommy reaches up to take whatever the fuck it is off. When he feels nothing, he starts to scrub at it, but then he feels it getting irritated and itchy and stops, lowering his hand to inspect his fingers.

Nothing shows up other than the faintest traces of red—blood—left on his fingertips.

His face drops.

_What?_

A mirror, he—he needed a mirror. Tommy looks around desperately, forgetting for a moment that he seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and that there was a very, very low chance of there being a nearby, let alone one at all. But then the mist and fog clears and he sees the distinct reflecting glint of a pond only a few paces away. He scrambles over to it, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process; he kneels at the edge of the water, both of his hands gripping the edge, and leans forward til he meets his face at the water’s surface.

He nearly pukes.

Was that _him?_

Yet the only logical explanation was that it _was_ —this beaten up kid with one half of his face covered in dried blood, his hair matted for the same reason, with tears and rips all over his clothes, a split lip and at least a couple of missing teeth when he looks closer. Near his left temple is where he sees the dried blood the most, and gingerly, he raises up his hand to lightly prod at it with his finger. He presses on it as gentle as he’s able, and he feels as though he should be surprised when he feels no pain from it. He presses again, harder; no pain. Again, with more force; none. Even when he accidentally reopens the wound and sees a new trickle of blood flow down his face and to his chin, he feels nothing.

Tommy stares into his eyes. They’re tired, he notices. Exhausted. He can’t bring himself to make a smile—god knows how mangled his teeth are, even with the couple of glimpses he’s already had. He can’t stop looking at himself, watching his blood drop into the pond, watching it as it disperses into thin strands of red before dissipating completely; he can’t stop watching how his eyes shift, something missing from them, and he’s sure at least one of them is turning black and blue.

Then, he notices something in the distance. A sound. Tommy turns to look behind him, and raises a brow when he sees nothing. There’s still the annoying mist, obscuring his view from anything beyond two meters ahead of him.

There it is again. Tommy feels like he should know it from somewhere, he just can’t place _where_. He stands up—slowly, as to not give himself another headache—and pinpoints a direction once he hears the sound again. He starts to walk; where this will take him, he doesn’t know, but it’s better than sitting around next to a bunch of water the entire time. He’d believe that he’s just walking aimlessly if not for the sound becoming louder and louder—not by much, but enough to know that he’s getting closer.

The sound becomes clearer, and his eyes widen when he recognizes it.

The guitar in the distance strums again, and Tommy picks up his pace.

A hill comes into view not too long after, and Tommy quickly begins to trek his way up towards the top. There, he sees a lone tree standing tall next to a lone bench, and he’s reminded of him and Tubbo’s spot near his house in the mountain, where they played one of his discs after they put Dream in prison, where they celebrated their victory, where Wil—

And lo and behold, the man himself sits on the bench, alone, his back turned to him and seemingly not noticing his presence. The man— _his brother_ —strums his guitar in his lap again, humming a soft tune with a melody Tommy is unable to make out. He’s already reached the top, and all he needs to do is sit down at the empty spot on the other side of the bench to make himself known.

But he doesn’t. In fact, he finds himself rooted in place on the wet grass that is starting to soak his old and battered shoes. He opens his mouth and then closes it. Opens and then closes again. For a good minute, he’s unable to find his voice, his words. What should he say? What _could_ he say?

Finally, carefully, after a long pause, Tommy manages as soft, “Wil...bur?”

He stiffens as he watches his brother abruptly stop mid-strum and wonders immediately if he did something wrong. He’s still stiff as he watches him turn his head—a tilt at first, before he shifts his entire body to look over his shoulder and find him standing. They meet eyes, and for a split second Tommy believes he sees Wilbur’s eyes widen in surprise, but it’s gone just as quickly that he convinces himself that he imagined it.

“...Tommy.”

Wilbur greets him in the exact same tone. There is no malicious tone, no deeper meaning he needs to wrack his brain over for an entire night to figure out. Tommy doesn’t feel as though he’s on thin ice around him, that any wrong move would plunge him into the dark depths of the cold river and set the former president of L’Manberg off on another tangent or rant or make him yell and scream and let his paranoia take over his entire being.

Yet his tone is not warm either. Wilbur doesn’t wear a smile, doesn’t open his arms wide to invite a hug; his arms still hold the guitar in his lap, his fingers still pressed against the fretboard and his thumb resting on a string.

And despite it all, Tommy feels the sudden urge to cry.

“Where… are we?” the teen asks, and he’s proud at the fact that his throat doesn’t just suddenly start to croak as something heavy in his eyes threatens to spill over. 

Wilbur hums, turning away from him again. “I can’t quite say,” he answers, and he readjusts his positioning on the fretboard. Tommy was never a musician growing up, so a part of him is slightly envious as he watches him seemingly angle his fingers in a random pattern and strums, a quiet melody cutting through the tense silence between the two of them. Wilbur continues, saying, “I’ve been here for a while now. Surely, Tommy, you’re smart enough to realize _exactly_ where we are.”  
  
“N—No, I don’t, Wilbur.” Tommy shakes his head. He suddenly feels scared, as though his mind already knows what sort of response he’ll get.  
  
In hindsight, that answer was stupid. It was denial, or just flat out disbelief entirely. Either way, Tommy remembers how he refused to believe the evidence right in front of him, even as Wilbur turns to face him again with a raised brow.

His next words held no judgement, but no reassurance either. Wilbur is as calm as ever when he states plainly, “You’re dead, Tommy.”  
  


Beat.

  
Tommy’s voice becomes shaky. “...What?”

As a child, Wilbur taught him something, who then later said that he learned from Phil. There’s an artery in the crook of your neck that you could use to find the pulse of your own heartbeat. Wilbur always considered it easier to find than the one in your wrist, and Tommy agreed. Press your index and middle finger together, find that crook, and then simply press your fingers lightly against your skin and stay still. That was always how Tommy would reassure himself that he was alive, that his last life wasn’t taken away from him and that he still had another chance.

So when he does exactly that and finds no pulse in his neck, he freezes in place, eyes widening in shock and his mouth falling open. He doesn’t see Wilbur press his lips into a thin line, averts his gaze, and sighs, that single action filled with his regrets and fears that are now standing right in front of him as a child too young to be dead in the first place.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Two cottages stand in the middle of a tundra, and in the middle of a snowstorm too no less. The night had already fallen across the land, though it wasn’t as though either of them could see any of the stars or the moon that should have been up high in the sky about now.

Although Phil holds a book in his lap, his mug of coffee placed on the low table in front of him, he can’t help but glance at Techno whose gaze has been trained outside the window ever since that afternoon. It was probably nothing, a rational part of him tries to make him believe. Due to the incoming snowstorm, they hadn’t been able to go out as much as they usually would. Yet, deeper down, Phil knew it was something else other than that—their pantries were stocked to the brim, their animals were safe, and it was highly unlikely that anyone would come and attack them in this weather. If anyone actually did, Phil would find them an idiot.

“Something on your mind, mate?” he ends up asking. He lowers down his book completely to observe Techno; he sees how the piglin hybrid’s mouth has turned into a frown, his jaw clenched in a way that he only does when he’s thinking deeply about something. It’s an expression that has Phil worried.

“I’m fine,” comes Techno’s automatic response, but it’s just that—automatic. Phil knows by now that it doesn’t reflect his true thoughts in any way, shape, or form, and usually, he wouldn’t prod further at that point.

However, something is bothering him too, and he suspects that Techno is having similar feelings.

“Are you sure?” he asks again. There’s a nagging feeling at the back of his head, that he _should_ know of _something_ but just _doesn’t_. Phil wouldn’t call himself the type to pursue any and all knowledge the world would offer, but liked to know to a point where he was aware of a lot of things. And yet, when he tries to pinpoint just _what_ he was missing, his mind comes up blank.

It’s infuriating is what it is.  
  


Ultimately, though, Techno just gives the same clipped response as before. “It’s probably nothing,” he adds as he turns away from the window. Phil watches him head into the kitchen. “We shouldn’t worry about it.”  
  
_We_ , Techno says, but it sounded as though he had as much of an idea of what was happening as Phil, meaning next to nothing. Phil frowns but says no more. He goes back to reading his book, his eyes scanning the words on the paper but processing none of it.

Elsewhere, Jack delivers the news, Quackity falls quiet, Ranboo plants flowers of red and white in front of a house that’s not lived in anymore, and Sam sits quietly in his home blaming himself. Tubbo works on building his new hotel in silence, laughing quietly at his own jokes that sound forced and lose their impact each time he says them.

Through the closed shutters, a strong gust of wind makes it inside the cottage and snuffs a candle’s flame out.

**Author's Note:**

> holy SHIT i wrote this all down in one sitting with minimal edits and proofreading when i edited this sakldfjsakdjfdsjfds  
> if i missed or got any details wrong i'm sorry but Tommy angst go brrr and haha i'm in so much pain from today


End file.
